HABITAT

ARCTUROS designed and implemented the three-year program "HABITAT (VIOTOPOS) - Nature in Our Yard" with the exclusive donation of the "Stavros Niarchos" Foundation and under the auspices of YPAITHPA.

The program involved the development of environmental awareness activities and experiential education for children and adolescents, through the creation of standard Botanic Gardens.

ARCTUROS offered in 15 high schools and senior high schools and 5 Institutions of Vulnerable Social Groups, throughout Greece, a substantial teaching experience oriented toward natural environment and its conservation, care, and development principles.
After ARCTUROS briefed students, teachers, guests and employees of the Institutions on the micro-environments that would be created in the schoolyards, it actively involved them in the creation of gardens, in collaboration with specialized teams, from the planing process to the planting process and the aesthetics of the gardens.

The creation of these Gardens was a valuable "tool" in the field of Environmental Education, playing a key role in the development of attitudes, behaviors and skills necessary to solve the major environmental problems of the planet.

The program "HABITAT- Nature in Our Yard":

taught to children and teenagers the importance of plants for human life and the ecosystems of the planet,

familiarized with the world of plants and highlighted the importance of maintaining Greece's native wild flora,

transmitted information on the protection of biodiversity and endangered plantation,

εencouraged participation in creative and group activities, such as the creation of a garden, and artistic intervention (painting large surfaces in schools and institutions),

helped children to appropriate the school premises with in order to take care of them and feel them as a space of creativity and learning,

transformed schools into elegant spaces to be a pleasant learning environment.

The botanical gardens followed 5 thematic models:

Bear Habitat

Wolf Habitat

Trees which prefer Water

Trees which decelerate Fire

Habitats with Aromatic plants

A staff of qualified partners of ARCTUROS-scientists (forester, biologist, agronomist, educator, artist) worked on the most complete realization of the program.

We in ARCTUROS believe that BIO-sites that we create are real life places for educational institutions, not only during the phase of construction but in the future, as we hope that the gardens will be "occupied" by representatives of fauna and avifauna and so nature will actually come in the schoolyards.